Planet Rugby Forum

Seneca of the Night wrote:

Mr Mike wrote:I suspected as much. Last time I saw Jenks was in Singapore, while he was based in Jakarta.

Amusing character

The stories I could tell. I saw him in Madrid recently.

Dark wrote:So now it turns out Galloway didn't read the whole file from his department and cancelled deportation within an hour of getting it.

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/arti ... d=12156782

The minister said he took "much, much longer on this decision than I took on other decisions".

Seneca of the Night wrote:I see manoeuvres are under way for a new cj. Farrar has a rundown:

https://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2018/11/the_ ... of_nz.html

JB1981 wrote:

Dark wrote:So now it turns out Galloway didn't read the whole file from his department and cancelled deportation within an hour of getting it.

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/arti ... d=12156782

According to Stuff

The minister said he took "much, much longer on this decision than I took on other decisions".

"I took much, much longer on this decision than I have on other decisions, and I'm following exactly the process that I inherited from the previous minister."

BillW wrote:

JB1981 wrote:

Dark wrote:So now it turns out Galloway didn't read the whole file from his department and cancelled deportation within an hour of getting it.

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/arti ... d=12156782

According to Stuff

The minister said he took "much, much longer on this decision than I took on other decisions".

Well now we know.
It's all the National Government's fault.

"I took much, much longer on this decision than I have on other decisions, and I'm following exactly the process that I inherited from the previous minister."

Nevertheless, reading between the lines as I've been advised to, Occam's razor still says he's a Labour Party donor.

BillW wrote: Nevertheless, reading between the lines as I've been advised to, Occam's razor still says he's a Labour Party donor.

Waka Nathan wrote:

BillW wrote: Nevertheless, reading between the lines as I've been advised to, Occam's razor still says he's a Labour Party donor.

I don't think it works that way. Normally you make a big donation, get sent to "candidate school", get a list seat, and get put on the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade committee...all while being under investigation by the SIS.

The simple explanation for anyone with even half a brain is that Sroubek is a police informer and cut a deal some time in the past.

Seneca of the Night wrote:

BillW wrote:

Waka Nathan wrote:

BillW wrote: Nevertheless, reading between the lines as I've been advised to, Occam's razor still says he's a Labour Party donor.

I don't think it works that way. Normally you make a big donation, get sent to "candidate school", get a list seat, and get put on the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade committee...all while being under investigation by the SIS.

The simple explanation for anyone with even half a brain is that Sroubek is a police informer and cut a deal some time in the past.

It would be some feat to find someone worse than himself to inform on.

Myabe he did inform on himself. 4D chess to get citizenship.

Seneca of the Night wrote:Winston's schedule:

Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters will travel to Europe today to open two new New Zealand embassies, hold bilateral talks, and attend Armistice Day centenary commemorations.

In Sweden Mr Peters will open New Zealand’s Embassy in Stockholm. He is also scheduled to meet with Sweden’s Prime Minister Stefan Löfven, Deputy Prime Minister Isabella Lövin, and Minister of Foreign Affairs Margot Wallström, and will deliver a speech at the Swedish Institute of International Affairs.

“A stronger relationship with Sweden and other Nordic countries will allow New Zealand to advance our interests in the European Union, and take advantage of opportunities arising from an EU-NZ Free Trade Agreement”, said Mr Peters.

Mr Peters will then travel to London to meet with UK Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt to discuss relations with the UK as it redefines its global role post-Brexit. The two Foreign Ministers will also mark the Armistice Day centenary with a half-time tribute during the All Blacks-England test match at Twickenham.

The Minister will also represent New Zealand at Armistice Day commemorations in France and attend the Paris Peace Forum, which is being convened by President Emmanuel Macron to discuss current global security challenges.

Mr Peters will then travel to Dublin to open New Zealand’s first resident Embassy in Ireland. He will hold talks with the Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar, and Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Simon Coveney. While in Dublin he will also deliver a speech to the Institute of International and European Affairs.

On his return leg from Europe, the Foreign Minister will attend the East Asia Summit in Singapore and APEC meeting in Papua New Guinea.

Mr Peters departs for Europe on 7 November and returns on 19 November.

Busy busy.

https://www.beehive.govt.nz/release/for ... s-and-apec

BillW wrote:

JB1981 wrote:

Dark wrote:So now it turns out Galloway didn't read the whole file from his department and cancelled deportation within an hour of getting it.

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/arti ... d=12156782

According to Stuff

The minister said he took "much, much longer on this decision than I took on other decisions".

Well now we know.
It's all the National Government's fault.

"I took much, much longer on this decision than I have on other decisions, and I'm following exactly the process that I inherited from the previous minister."

Nevertheless, reading between the lines as I've been advised to, Occam's razor still says he's a Labour Party donor.

JOHN KEY AND THE 170 BILLION DOLLAR KNIGHTHOOD.

The most poignant comment of John Key's political career came on his last day in government.
As Key walked down the steps of the beehive for the final time, he was met by a reporter from TVNZ who asked how important it had been that he was seen as popular. Key's predefined answer was, of course it was important that he was popular in the publics eyes.
(Unfortunately, good leaders cannot always be popular, especially when tough decisions need to be made.)

In that one sentence, John Key summed up the objectives and policies of the National government between 2008 and 2016.

John Key never entered politics to help the poor or the homeless. He never set out to save our environment. His policies weren't to alleviate congestion on the roads or waiting lists in our hospitals, and Key never intended to help young Kiwis into their first homes.
John Key entered politics to fulfil a boyhood dream. He was drawn to the limelight and dreamt of rubbing shoulders with the All Blacks, playing golf with President Obama, visiting the Royals, and the other unique opportunities offered by the office of Prime Minister.

Once in government, John Key had one simple priority - take whatever steps were needed to keep the National party in government.

So what was his plan?

Governments everywhere have always lived and died on one thing - employment. Not the economy.
This is a strange thing to say because the public associate strong employment with a healthy economy.
This is true with one important exception, and that is when you are funding the economy with debt !!

John Key knew he couldn't grow our economy the proper way with exports. He didn't have the time or dedication. He entered politics for the rewards of office not to get bogged down in the mundane rigours of running a country.

So Key turned to debt to fund the economy.

But he couldn't use government debt as the media would have reported this quickly and it would have been political suicide.
So he turned to private debt using immigration to create a massive building and consumption boom.
Over his 8 years in power, New Zealand had the greatest increase in population, on a per capita basis, of any country in the world. And it has been funded, in the main, by debt. Masses of debt. Over 100 billion dollars in eight short years or between 20 and 30 billion every year in mortgage debt since 2008

In 2008 when John Key took power, New Zealand had a population of 4.2 million people, and residential mortgage debt was around 130 billion. 8 years later the population had increased to 4.7 million, and mortgage debt had climbed to 247.8 billion dollars. A massive increase in 8 years.
By creating a building boom using immigration, you can keep an enormous percentage of the population employed. There are very few sectors of the economy that are not affected by the demand from massive population growth.
Mortgage debt has been paying for builders and plumbers and architects and planners, it is also paying the wages of people working at Placemakers, Bunnings, Hirepool, Briscoes, Farmers, car dealers, real estate agents, lawyers, accountants and many many other professions.

But using immigration is an extremely perilous way of funding your economy. It destroys the environment, places enormous pressure on infrastructure ( because there is no money to upgrade services), and it creates a huge drop in the standard of living.
It is a short-term means of keeping unemployment low, but because it is funded with debt, is a long-term ticking time bomb.

The media have for the last nine years been reporting our 'rock star economy' and our expanding growth. None of them have been reporting the truth, which is not a growing economy just a growing population, and the only thing that is 'rockstar' is the debt!

Alongside private debt, National was also using government debt.
When Key took over in 2008 government debt was 10.3 billion, this grew to 64.4 in 2016 when he left.
The media have blamed the Christchurch and Kaikoura earthquakes but the government's exposure to Christchurch was $18 billion, and Kaikoura cost $2 billion.
Also, there has been minimal coverage of the effect of billions pumped into our economy from foreign insurance.

The GFC was another 'crisis' we had to deal with. The GFC was never quantified and was mostly covered over by the debt from immigration.
New Zealand had limited exposure to the GFC, mainly from the collapse of poorly structured finance companies but we will have our real, and much worse GFC when we stop immigration.

Most of the 50 billion of government debt borrowed by Key was spent trying to cope with the ever-expanding population from mass immigration.
Rising pressure on hospitals, schools, roading, police, were placing enormous cost pressures on infrastructure but billions were needed above borrowings to retain our standard of living.
(National spent over 50 million between 2008-16 on motels for the homeless. This issue is still with us in 2018)
National was also taking money out of departments like DOC ( in 2015 $36 million came out of DOC's budget) to try to keep on top of rising costs in other departments.
But Key still ran 5 current account deficits in 8 years, mostly unreported because the media were preoccupied with employment numbers.
(An interesting statistic is the surpluses that were run in 2015/16/17, and the surpluses run today, are mainly taxes earnt off mortgage debt, as building houses underpins our economy.)

Even with government borrowings, infrastructure in 2018 is in semi-crisis due to population demands.

So how bad are things now?
Because the country has been funded mainly by debt for the last 9 years instead of wealth, there has been no appreciable gain in taxation, just massive cost pressure from the growing population.
Infrastructure is bursting at the seams trying to service another 500,000 'Kiwis', and there is simply no money other than more debt to bring our standard of living back to pre-Key days.
For example, Auckland has seen the greatest influx of people but has no more hospitals or substantial schools than 10 years ago. And there is no money.

But perhaps the worst and most damaging outcome from John Key's tenure is house prices and rents.
Houses prices in Auckland went up 91% under Keys National government due to massive demand and speculation. Immigrants and young Kiwis are now burdened with some of the biggest mortgages of any homeowners in the world!
The ramifications of all this debt are significant.
Mortgage debt will restrict lifestyles, it will affect health care and education. It will hamper the ability to save for retirement and will cause enormous long-term stress.
This debt is not only going to be a huge burden for the mortgage holders but will have a massive impact on New Zealand with less discretionary spending into our economy.

The data shows that no government over an 8 year period in history has done more social, economic and environmental damage to New Zealand than the John Key and Bill English led National government.
There is no way back from the mess they have created only the possibility to make it worse if Jacinda Ardern carries on with immigration and borrows heavily at the same time to fund infrastructure upgrades.
In a lot of ways, our economy is now at the mercy of the Australian banks, being a total of over 500 billion dollars in debt.
Kiwis need to understand that the damage Key has done cannot be fixed by throwing debt at the problem. Burying the already mortgage-laden youth of New Zealand under more public debt is just wrong.

The bulk of New Zealand's wealth comes from the land. We grow things and sell them to the world and this is how we pay for services like hospitals and police, defence, teachers, nurses, superannuation etc. The single greatest threat to the wealth and standard of living for Kiwis is a large population.

In an article written for the NZ Business review, titled " A Paradise Lost, " the author argued it will take decades to recover from John Key. I disagree. Our environment will never recover from the 2008/17 period and I do not believe we will ever have the standard of living we had pre-Key again.

If you want to put a 'positive' spin on things, you could say that bringing back Knighthoods by the National party was a fortuitous move.
Because both Key and English were able to receive one.

booji boy wrote:Link?

Just curious where that article came from and who is the author?

deadduck wrote:It's easy to forget just how bad things got in the countries that decided on austerity rather than borrowing when the GFC hit.

Look at what happened in Ireland and Spain at the time.

Many countries in Europe are still struggling with high unemployment even now almost 10 years later.

The 'bugger all' we got from that borrowing was a safety net against economic ruin. There's a reason English was hailed internationally for his actions during that period.

Dame Sian Elias' $3.3m super payout


Retiring Supreme Court chief justice Dame Sian Elias is leaving the role with a platinum-plated superannuation entitlement seeded with at least $3.3 million of public money.

That nest egg, likely worth millions more, comes from a uniquely generous super scheme that sees judges, including Elias, able to contribute up to five per cent of their salaries to a superannuation fund that is then topped up by $7.50 for each dollar they contribute.

ACT Party leader David Seymour said a similar, albeit less generous, scheme for MPs - seeing contributions from Parliamentarians matched with a $2.50 subsidy - was widely-considered to be gold-plated.

"I've long thought MPs superannuation was pretty generous, but, actually, it's tidbits compared with a 7.5 times contribution matching," he said.

Elias, appointed to the High Court in 1995, has been the country's chief jurist since 1999 and had led the Supreme Court - the country's highest - since its formation in 2004.

Based on two decades of Remuneration Authority decisions outlining Elias' salary and other benefits, starting in 1995 with a total package of $205,400 and ending with this years' earnings of $739,950, Elias has been entitled to contribute $441,395 over the years - and had it bolstered with $2.85m in matching subsidies.

Depending on how the sum was invested the retirement package could be worth millions more. If her fund achieved returns equivalent to the average performance of the NZX50 index over the past decade - 6.69 per cent - Herald on Sunday modelling suggests Elias will leave the Supreme Court building next year with around $6.5m in the bank.

A spokesperson for the courts said Elias was in Australia and unable to comment.

Constitutional conventions based on ensuring the judiciary has independence from the executive has seen parliamentarians shy away from criticising or amending the scheme, with salaries and superannuation entitlements instead set by the independent Remuneration Authority.

Dame Fran Wilde, chair of the authority, defended Elias' entitlements: "This is not a golden handshake, but a well-established constitutional obligation."

She said the scheme was designed to ensure the integrity of the judicial system by ensuring judges were "free from income pressures both during their time on the bench and afterwards" and was similar to arrangements in other countries.

Wilde noted Elias' tenure was unusually long - with the judges typically serving 16 years on the bench compared with Elias' 24 - and the average "annual retirement fund will be a lot lower".

Seymour said the scheme appeared over-engineered. "There are useful constitutional reasons for judges to be independent, well-paid and above bribery, but $3m? That's a lot she's above."

The new Government has made reining in high-end public sector salaries a priority, making high-profile decisions to can performance bonuses for Ministry chief executives and freezing the pay of MPs.

Justice Minister Andrew Little said in 2013, when he was in opposition, that the judicial super scheme was "one of the most generous I've ever heard of " and considered the subsidy - on top of public-sector leading salaries - gave the judiciary "some of the highest incomes for anyone in the country."

Little this week reaffirmed his general view, but declined to address the payout.

"The scheme is very generous, there's no question of that. But the way it applies to a specific judge would be inappropriate to comment on," he said.

"Judges occupy a vital part in our constitutional setup, and there's a need to ensure the independence of judges so they don't feel they can be somehow held to ransom by politicians or parliament."

"Government has taken clear and decisive actions on reining in public sectors salaries at the top end - we've led the way on that - but when it comes to judges they have a set of arrangements and constitutional conventions and it is not appropriate for politicians to hoe into them."

Otago University law professor Andrew Geddis said New Zealand had specific legislation prohibiting cuts to judicial pay or conditions, and a case in Canada in the 1980s over a proposal to have judges contribute more to their super schemes was rejected - by judges of the Canadian supreme court - as unconstitutional.

Geddis had sympathy for Little's position: "That's the constitutional problem underlying all of this: The separation of powers. The idea that the executive branch could set the terms and conditions of the judiciary is much more fraught than, for instance, setting public service salaries."

Geddis said the high pay for judges was largely a function of higher-still salaries in the private sector, from where judges were recruited.

"The reality is that lawyers – at the very highest level – have very, very high incomes. You do end up with this result, that judges salaries have crept up and up and up. I would say with confidence that a senior QC would pull in more than a million dollars a year."

Elias is married to former Auckland University chancellor and Fletcher Challenge chief executive Hugh Fletcher. The Fletcher family, whose ancestor founded Fletcher Building in 1909, were earlier this year assessed by the National Business Review as being worth $105m.

The couple, given Elias is 69 and Hugh is 70, qualify for fortnightly New Zealand Superannuation payments of $701.52 and free public transport through the SuperGold Card.

Seneca of the Night wrote:Every named person in that article is an utterly ghastly human being. We may need a guillotine in NZ one day.

Seneca of the Night wrote:Every named person in that article is an utterly ghastly human being. We may need a guillotine in NZ one day.

terangi48 wrote:Hilarious stuff Simon............

Dark wrote:

terangi48 wrote:Hilarious stuff Simon............

grouch wrote:

deadduck wrote:It's easy to forget just how bad things got in the countries that decided on austerity rather than borrowing when the GFC hit.

Look at what happened in Ireland and Spain at the time.

Many countries in Europe are still struggling with high unemployment even now almost 10 years later.

The 'bugger all' we got from that borrowing was a safety net against economic ruin. There's a reason English was hailed internationally for his actions during that period.

We didn't need to borrow ,because of the 'austerity' of the Cullen/Clarke regime.

Total debt[ public/private] was at the bottom of OECD , a remarkable situation given the economic mayhem of the Bolger/Birch/Shipley years.

What Key/English did was treasonable.
They cut the top tax rate and borrowed , week in week out , to fund the deficit and to justify flogging of the family silver [ Mighty river , genesis , meridian] - which conservatively rorted NZers of $870 million

We didn't need to borrow ,because of the 'austerity' of the Cullen/Clarke regime.

I bags this job!!

That nest egg, likely worth millions more, comes from a uniquely generous super scheme that sees judges, including Elias, able to contribute up to five per cent of their salaries to a superannuation fund that is then topped up by $7.50 for each dollar they contribute.

Tehui wrote:

That nest egg, likely worth millions more, comes from a uniquely generous super scheme that sees judges, including Elias, able to contribute up to five per cent of their salaries to a superannuation fund that is then topped up by $7.50 for each dollar they contribute.

Un-freaking-believable!

Enzedder wrote:Most would be joining the scheme in their 60s though

Based on two decades of Remuneration Authority decisions outlining Elias' salary and other benefits, starting in 1995 with a total package of $205,400 and ending with this years' earnings of $739,950, Elias has been entitled to contribute $441,395 over the years - and had it bolstered with $2.85m in matching subsidies.

Enzedder wrote:Most would be joining the scheme in their 60s though

Gordon Bennett wrote:

Tehui wrote:

That nest egg, likely worth millions more, comes from a uniquely generous super scheme that sees judges, including Elias, able to contribute up to five per cent of their salaries to a superannuation fund that is then topped up by $7.50 for each dollar they contribute.

Un-freaking-believable!

Well, it's certainly one way to make a defined contribution scheme nearly as good as a defined benefit scheme. I was amazed when I started work at an employer who puts in $1.35 for every $1 I put in.

If it were $7.50, then I'd probably have a decent pension already.

Seneca of the Night wrote:There's something not quite right when a society / economy has a parasitical legal class sitting at the top of its salary structure as New Zealand has. Lawyers get paid an extraordinary amount of money proportionate to the size of the economy it seems to me and the big law firms seem to wield too much power. The contrast with bigger countries is pretty stark. Here in London there is a couple of layers above lawyers to keep them in their box a little. The judicial class in New Zealand seem to comport themselves like feudal Lords.